1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for processing images, an apparatus for processing reproduced images, a method of processing images and a method of processing reproduced images, which detect objects from moving picture information. These apparatuses and methods may be applied to, for example, monitoring systems in which two cameras are used, one of which is a sensor camera for scanning a board area, and the other of which is a zooming camera for photographing a target object existing in the broad area.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic still cameras have hitherto been used widely. In the electronic still camera, the solid-state imaging element, such as a CCD, receives the light coming from an object photographed and converts the light into an image signal. The image signal can be recorded in a recording medium and can be reproduced from the recording medium. Most electronic still cameras have a monitor that can display photographed still pictures. Thus, any one of the still pictures recorded can be selected and displayed. In the electronic still camera, the image signal supplied to the monitor corresponds to one image of an object photographed.
In recent years, a technique of compressing and synthesizing a plurality of video signals, thereby generating a one-frame video signal, has been proposed (see, for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. Laid-Open Publication No. 10-108163). A centralized monitoring/recording system has been proposed, too, in which video signals are collected from a plurality of monitoring video cameras and recorded on a recoding medium such as video tape, thus accomplishing monitoring and supervising (see, for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-243062).